Adapting to Change

A letter in response to Eric Klinenberg’s article (January 7, 2013)

Klinenberg’s article acknowledges the value of smart electric power grids but stops short of proposing the next step: decentralizing the distributed urban power supply. Adapting cities to the risks inherent in an increasingly global, unpredictable climate means that the energy systems of twenty-first-century cities cannot be twentieth-century retreads. We have learned the hard way that they are neither reliable nor cheap, and they cannot be made secure. Beyond the disputes over fossil fuels and nuclear and renewable power alternatives, warnings are appearing about the vulnerability of the nation’s power grid to hacking and disruption. We need to scale up decentralized systems of combined power and heating, and interconnect them through smart local grids. Additionally, the potential to reduce inefficiencies that result from sending electricity from far-off power plants cannot be ignored. We know that financing urban micro-grids is possible, but we also know that under current conditions it won’t be easy.

Nancy Anderson

Sallan Foundation

Nada Marie Anid

New York Institute of Technology

New York City

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